


weird missing what sucks

by gooberjam



Series: unfinished goop [2]
Category: Homestuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 20:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18454439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooberjam/pseuds/gooberjam
Summary: this is one i wrote in august of 2018, and it's more of me messing around and exploring depressed john, this time in a more canonical setting. and also dirk is there.





	weird missing what sucks

_“Hey, can I ask you a question?”_

 

It’s been one of those days where nothing has really happened, yet you still feel the weight of a thousand different things creaking heavy on your shoulders. Not even just metaphorically speaking; the ache has permeated through whatever dimension metaphors live in, and is grabbing onto your shoulders through to the bone. Your neck is stiff as a result, making it kind of hard to turn it from side to side without some sort of pain like you’re stretching the muscle and skin to the point it’s going to tear.

 

This isn’t a new feeling, in fact it’s been pretty consistent for the past couple of years since you’ve stopped doing things.

 

You feel like you’re being swallowed by some great big black hole every time you think about how long it’s actually been. The wash of guilt and shame comes down hard as if you’re being sucked into it, falling backwards into frigid waters that crinkle your fingers and toes and crawl up your nostrils and slip down your throat to settle in your stomach, cold and heavy. Turns your breath to ice.

 

_“Hey, can I ask you a question?”_

 

You hadn’t intended for this to turn into a whole lot of you doing nothing. In fact, you’d been pretty excited for everything, maybe even more enthusiastic than anyone else. You were ready for a new beginning, a new world. You were ready to just be happy after all of this, with your friends and sort of family. You couldn’t wait to see what this new earth would become, what incredible things would be done that never had the chance to happen back home. Science fiction was happening in front of you, and it was as totally rad and kind of gross, just as you’d expected.

 

The only problem was that while all your friends had a pretty clear idea of what they’d be doing to forge this world ahead, you kind of fell behind.

 

What could you do here? What would help that hasn’t already been done? Did they even need help?

 

The first couple of months had been such a whirlwind of exploring and sharing everything between one another, learning more about this place and its inhabitants. But then it turned from exploring to settling, and things shifted strangely.

 

You found yourself not wanting to go outside all that much anymore, and you kind of just stayed in your old house, playing your old video games and watching your old movies.

 

It wasn’t that big of a deal, and it took a while for anyone to really even notice. You knew everyone was busy, and maybe that’s part of why you fell into it in the first place. Maybe it was just better if you stayed out of the way. Besides, it was starting to feel exhausting thinking about doing much of anything. You figured it was finally catching up with you, everything that had happened and all the stuff you hadn’t had the chance to think about while you were in it.

 

Jade was the first to message you about it, and then steadily the stream of other friend-worry poured in. You figured maybe she’d messaged everyone in a group chat or something. It was weird because before then, you hadn’t entirely realized yourself. You’d sequestered yourself off for almost a whole year and hadn’t even thought a single thing of it.

 

You’d gotten together with everyone for important stuff like holidays and birthdays, but other than that it was surprisingly easy to just stay in your pocket of the world and watch from afar.

 

After your 18th, you’d quietly mentioned that maybe you don’t want to have your birthday be such a big deal. It felt weird to celebrate a day when the entirety of humanity as you knew it was wiped out. When guardians were killed. When a whole manner of horrible things took place. Besides, there was always more important stuff to be focusing on, and you didn’t want to drag everyone away from what they were doing just to celebrate something as silly as your birthday. It helped when Jane agreed, saying that she’d had some pretty rotten birthdays in the past and would rather it just wasn’t made into such a big deal.

 

It also probably helped that everyone wasn’t just busy with whatever job they were working on, but also with each other. It was pretty amazing watching everyone actually get to be with one another after so long. It felt a little strange for you, admittedly, but just because your reality had been so different from theirs. You can’t imagine how it must have been for Jade being alone all that time, and it made your chest feel all tight and warm seeing her smiling and enjoying herself with Dave and Karkat. You can’t even begin to describe how happy you are Rose has Kanaya. Seeing them together makes you think back to all the times you’d gush over relationships in movies, and how silly those relationships seem in comparison to the real deal.

 

It’s hard to quite place how you feel all the time now, but you think you’re really happy, and you just haven’t totally realized it yet.

 

_“Hey, can I ask...”_

 

The biggest thing was on your 21st. Apparently the entire friend group had plotted to make it a big deal again, but Jade called it off at the last second after talking with her for a while about wanting to just be alone. For some reason, your dad being gone was hitting really hard and it was putting you in a supremely weird headspace. You couldn’t do a party, you weren’t even sure you could do being around other people just in general. You’d compromised because she refused to totally drop it, saying you’d celebrate a couple of days later to make up for it, and you were looking forward to it, you think.

 

But the problem with organizing things over pesterchum is that you are really banking on people paying attention to that stuff all the time.

 

On your 21st birthday your doorbell rang, and you opened the door to Dirk Strider, standing awkwardly with a present under his arm, oil and grease still sort of smeared on his face from what seemed to be a very productive (or very unproductive) day of mechanical shenanigans. He’d peered over your head into the empty house and back at you before asking pretty flatly, “Am I that late?”

 

And despite the awkwardness of the entire situation, Dirk insisted that he’d come all that way and made an entire goddamn present so he couldn’t just bounce. You’re pretty sure it was just because he was embarrassed about his mistake, so he insisted on following through with it. You didn’t totally mind, in fact you think it turned it into one of your better birthdays. Not because it wasn’t super awkward, because it was totally really fucking awkward, but more because you just sort of hung out and watched movies and ended up talking over the entirety of Armageddon about growing up with the game always looming over your head, and how different it feels being here at the end of everything.

 

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” He’d turned a little more towards you, and you couldn't totally make out his face considering none of the lights were on, so you were basically just going off the shifting light of the screen.

 

“Uh. I mean yeah, go ahead.”

 

“Are you happy? Living like this, I mean.”

 

You blinked, caught off guard by what you felt was a pretty stupid question.

 

“Yeah, I’m happy. Why wouldn’t I be?”

 

“Is that a genuine question? Because I think I can answer that, if you want me to.” To which he quickly followed up with, “I’m not trying to be a prick. I don’t mean I’d tell you why you should feel put out, I just meant more like... I think I can sympathize with how you may be feeling.”

 

“... How am I feeling?”

 

He sat more upright, straightening his shoulders back, like you’d reminded him of something unpleasant..

 

“I’m not trying to tell you how you’re feeling. That’s... I’m just saying that I think I might... fuck, okay, I’m not good at this, I’ll be the first to admit that. It probably doesn’t help that we still aren’t super familiar with one another, which is kind of on me for not reaching out. I’ve just noticed that you seem to be spending an awful lot of time by yourself, and it hasn’t gone entirely unnoticed by everyone else, either.”

 

You remember feeling tight in your chest, like your lungs had seized up big and were pressing on the insides of your ribs. You weren’t sure what it was then, but looking back maybe you were scared, or just didn’t want to hear it.

 

“Forgive me if I’m wrong-- like I said I don’t want to come off like I’m telling you how you are-- but it sort of seems like maybe you’ve been having a hard time adjusting to... this.”

 

“This?”

 

“Living without some doomsday adventure to get you through. Getting used to not constantly thinking about the next step, what you could be doing to get ready, what you need to do when you get there, etcetera.”

 

“What, you think I actually enjoyed all that shit? I’m like... bored now?” It hurt more than a little bit at the time, which why wouldn’t it? Being told you liked the shitshow SBURB turned out to be and the oodles of trauma and horrible shit felt like being punched in the face. You remembered Dirk was an asshole like you were being dumped into a ton of ice water.

 

“If this were the 1950’s I’d probably say you were bored, sure. But I mean maybe it’s something deeper than that.”

 

You both went quiet after that, and you can’t totally recall what you were thinking in the moment, and maybe you weren’t really thinking at all. You just looked at him and his silhouette, lit red one moment, and a deep blue the next. And then for some reason you couldn’t keep your eyes on him any longer, like putting two positive ends of a magnet together. Your gaze trailed back to the screen, more just to have another place to look that wasn’t Dirk more than anything else.

 

“I don’t know if that’s totally right. I mean, I could maybe understand why you’d feel like that. You grew up basically training for the game, right? Like... you’ve always been thinking about the big picture, so of course it’d be hard living without that anymore.”

 

“Well yeah, I guess. But I don’t think that means it’s entirely impossible for you to feel the same. Or not the same. Similar, maybe. From what I know about you, I think it might be a pretty safe bet saying that you’re also at your best when confronting a problem. Probably not the same way I am, but you worked really well in the game. You adapted and pretty quickly found your stride. Maybe going from all of that back to this isn’t so easy anymore. Especially considering what you left behind.”

 

“Pfff, okay dude. You don’t need to project your stuff on me and then toss in some half-assed shit about my dad to tie the whole thing together. Because I know that is what you are trying to be all sly about.”

 

“I don’t necessarily mean just your dad.” You looked at him as he shifted forward a bit, doing that thing where he looks through you. He never grew up around people, so of course he didn’t ever know when he was staring at someone too long, but it was still unnerving. Not even in the creepy weirdo way (well sort of, but that’s more just because Dirk is in general a creepy weirdo,) it was more because it felt like he was using his eyes to sear a hole into you, like that would give him a better vantage point to look inside, dissect you.

 

“Maybe when your earth died, your life before went with it. And when your dad was killed, your only other connection back to that was severed.”

 

“That’s not true,” You piped up, eager to tell the dude how obviously wrong he was. “I have Nannasprite.”

 

“Sure, but she’s also spliced with a harlequin doll and can blast cookies out of an oven at 500 miles per hour with her mind. Regardless of the fact that your grandmother's ashes are in there, she still remains to be a construct of the game.”

 

You couldn’t figure out how to reply. The dude just slammed the eject button on the space garbage disposal in the science fiction version of your brain, and it was sucking all the words out into space. You knew you had things to say in return, ways to shut him down, but maybe you didn’t want to. Or maybe you were exhausted of doing that. Like in that moment, there was a pocket of reprieve and you felt like that night, if just for that night, you should bite your tongue and let someone go a little further.

 

“Not to be presumptive, but I think out of all of us, you’re the one person who came from a truly happy situation before all of this started. Roxy and I grew up isolated in a world that had already been doomed, Jane was isolated to her home with the constant looming threat of assassination, Jake and Jade were isolated on their respective islands, Rose grew up with an alcoholic mother, Dave grew up with an abusive brother-- you’re kind of the odd one out. Aside from creepy clown aesthetics and excessive exposure to baked goods, it seems like you were the one person who would maybe legitimately have a reason to want to go back, and maybe that’s why it’s so hard for you to leave the game behind.”

 

And the moment ended.

 

“That’s not true— just because Rose’s mom struggled with her weird stuff, it doesn’t make their relationship any less.”

 

“Yeah, that ‘weird stuff’ was being an alcoholic. Having a relationship of any sort with someone who’s drunk all of the time isn’t really a relationship because the alcohol is keeping them detached from everything. I’m not trying to make it sound like they didn’t actually love each other, or that it was totally terrible, but it makes it hard is all I’m saying. I’m not saying some of the friend group doesn’t think about going back to before, but I’m saying maybe you’re the only one who would want to go back and not change how things were.”

 

That one hit you kind of hard.

 

“And maybe after losing all of that, being lost in the metaphorical sauce of ‘adolescent homicide: the game’ was a welcome distraction for not thinking too much about it. But now you’re here, and you have to face what you don’t have anymore.”

 

“... I guess for you it’s weird because you never didn’t have some mind boggling biznasty to deal with. So to speak.”

 

“Well, yeah. Pretty much.”

 

“You seem to be doing a lot better than me, though.” It was the first time you’d openly admitted to something being wrong, even if indirectly. And half-assedly.

 

Though maybe it was different for you because if you weren’t outright denying something it was pretty damning in of itself.

 

“I don’t know if that’s totally true. It’s also just genuinely more difficult dealing with something you lost rather than being faced with having to learn something new. Not to say you’re probably right, or at least you should be. If anything this is a positive experience, and I’m just fucked up enough to make it stressful because of that. It’s kind of pathetic to even be complaining about my situation; oh woe is me, not living in the middle of an apocalypse. I have to see my friends in person now, and actually have a family. This is hell.”


End file.
